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Bill Dimm writes "Apple scores a win against Samsung over a design patent. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh issued a ruling granting Apple's request for a preliminary injunction preventing Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the United States. She wrote, 'Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly by flooding the market with infringing products. ... While Samsung will certainly suffer lost sales from the issuance of an injunction, the hardship to Apple of having to directly compete with Samsung’s infringing products outweighs Samsung’s harm in light of the previous findings by the Court."

Apple is no longer interesting. The only thing interesting about Apple is the fact that OS X has the *nix goodness under the hood.

The last thing that interested me was BeOS. Ahead of its time and DOA.

I remember having a Be box (commodity hardware with BeOS installed) at work in 2000. It rocked. I hope Haiku becomes a success, but it seems that if things are not mainstream, they die on the vine no matter how good they are.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is over a year old at this point and probably not selling in large volume any longer. Other competing Android tablets have already supplanted it in nearly every area and it will probably be replaced by Samsung's next offering in the near future. Unless this ruling also makes it a lot easier for Apple to get an injunction against any of Samsung's future tablet products, I can't see this making a difference at all.

I haven't read the ruling yet, but in several past cases, usually the injunction prevents Samsung from importing additional product. That would mean that inventory already in the US and in the hands of retailers could continue to be sold so long as Apple doesn't pursue legal action against retails, which they won't as many of those retailers also likely sell Apple's products. Given that Samsung will probably have a new tablet out soon, I can't see them even caring if they can't restock supplies of the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

I'd be interested in hearing the full implications from this ruling from someone more versed in the relevant laws. Is this victory as hollow as I think it is, or is there actually some value in this for Apple?

No they aren't. Customers benefit from an endless system of appeals, cumbersome and byzantine laws regarding patents, trademarks and copyrights -- it saves them from having to buy a competitor's product, the poor bastards. The free market is dangerous and must be heavily regulated... unless it's labor, in which case we need as little regulation as possible because we have to remain competitive with third world sweat shops.

Everything you buy here is cheaper everywhere else, and it's because you're not working hard enough for your crumbs, Citizen.

What's particularly innovative about the ipad design? Like what's so innovative that it deserves a patent? (i personally believe the ipad to be an innovative device, i just don't see what's so special about its design)

Especially when they are going after HTC for things like contextual menus. "Oh that's a phone number would you like to call it?" or I see you have two browsers which would you like to open the link in and would you like it to be your default?". It's not like that shit hasn't been around fir years... oh wait.

for granting these silly patents.Whilst the system allows for this sort of shite then companies are DUTY bound to protect the interests of their shareholders over what they see as a perfectly LEGAL asset.

Apple, MicroSoft and a gazillion others are all playing the system. If you want to stop this then

Fix the frigging system.

I'd like to abolish the USPTO and start again but I have no influence as I'm not a US Citizen so what I would like to do is an irrelevance.

Sitting 3K miles away, I do get the impression of Nero fiddling whilst Rome burns as I watch this M.A.D ness going on accross the pond.

What's particularly innovative about the ipad design? Like what's so innovative that it deserves a patent? (i personally believe the ipad to be an innovative device, i just don't see what's so special about its design)

Samsung's innovation is substantial... they used to actually have innovation. But looking at their history its obvious that if it wasn't for Apple, they likely wouldn't have changed the designs of their tablets which, prior to the iPad 2010 release, were completely different:

Here is Samsung's early tablet, the 1992 Pen Master [computinghistory.org.uk]
Not too bad for 1992!

Fast forward to 2006... we have the Samsung Q1 [cnet.com]
Also, not a bad offering at the time... but, again, completely different than iPad, in 14 years Samsung's basic tablet design has not really evolved much, besides the advancement in the underlying technology, they added some buttons to the bezel... a new innovation.

Moving forward to 2011, we have the Samsung Series 7 Convertable. [zdnet.com]
Just a glance reveals the impact iPad's 2010 release had on Samsung design... even with a keyboard, the new tablet is far more similar to iPad's design than previous Samsung tablet designs, though it still runs a newer version of Windows, the bezel width has decreased and the buttons have disappeared.

As for Samsung's current offering, we have the Samsung Galaxy! The bezel width has expanded from the design of the Series 7, and Windows is replaced with a version of Android that is not all that different from iOS. Here it is with Apple's iPad: side by side [ipad2iphone5.com]

I'll leave it up to the discriminating slashdotter to decide if Samsung has possibly encroached on any of Apple's design patents, even if a legal expert and the only authority that matters has already conveniently done this for us (but what could they possibly know that slashdotters don't!).

If you're looking for good examples of how one can avoid encroaching on Apple's designs, look at Apple's Mac Mini and its competition. PC manufacturers have offered a multitude of small PCs that perform similarly to the Mac Mini without having to resort to copying it outright. They have innovated a plethera of attractive designs that don't even come close to looking like the Mini while still retaining a small desktop footprint. The point here is that it can be done... the design of the iPad is not the only possible design for a tablet... Samsung themselves have proved that, yet they have aparently abandoned the idea of innovating their tablet design any further.

And now you're just bashing me because you think you disagree with me.

the way patient law should freakin work

s/patient/patent

You say you want to change the law - that's great - that's what is supposed to happen. What happens when someone else disagrees with whatever you manage to get it changed to? Does that make them wrong? Not necessarily.

Apple are trying to use the law, as it is currently written to maintain what they see is an advantage. People seem to attach some moral / immoral overtone to this but it's no different morally to exercising any other rights or laws. You may think that the law is silly or wrong - and you may be correct - but that doesn't make Apple immoral or evil. Nor does the fact that Apple spends a lot less on R&D than MS - one could argue that MS is immorally wasting their shareholders' money.